At a conference, you sit next to a writer you know from an online forum. You write in similar niches. Based on their personality from their posts on the forum, you are pretty sure that the two of you have a lot in common and could be friends.

You turn to the writer and introduce yourself. What do you say? “Hi, I’m Jennifer. We know each other from Freelance Success. I really think that we could become really good friends and email each other 10 times a day. We could hang out at conferences and share editor leads. Oh, and I’d like to talk on the phone six times a year.”

No, you do not. The writer would look at you like you were bat$#@% crazy. Maybe they aren’t looking for an accountability buddy, but just someone to go to lunch with today. So instead you just say, “Hi, I’m Jennifer. We know each other from Freelance Success. I really enjoy your posts and have been hoping we would get to meet at some point.”

View the LOI as an Introduction, Not the Whole Sale Pitch

I often get questions from writers about what they should be asking the client to hire them for in the LOI. Should they be inquiring about a specific account, writing for a certain blog or publication, or should they propose a new project like a whitepaper or a new blog?

It’s the same concept when you send a Letter of Introduction to a prospective client as introducing yourself to a new friend. I personally think that except in a few very specific situations which I will explain below, I think you should view your LOI as just the opening line. Yes, I know that my example of the conference was a bit of an exaggeration, but I’ve been writing a lot of boring stuff lately and needed some fun.

You want to get the conversation started. You don’t need to say everything you want to ever say to the client to convenience them to hire you. In fact, I’ve learned the hard way that lengthy LOIs are a bad thing. The goal is to put in enough information that so that they are compelled to respond back to learn more about you.

Should You Suggest Specific Clients or Projects?

Back to the question about should you propose specific projects that you want to work on in your LOI. I think that generally the answer is no. I also think many writers simply don’t send an LOI because they don’t know what project to propose and this leads to missed opportunities. You absolutely do not need to wait to send on LOI until you have a specific idea for work.

The main reason is that you simply do not know enough about the client to accurately suggest projects. yYou have no idea which projects are on the client’s to-do list internally. Or if you are approaching an agency, you don’t know which new clients they are about to sign, which is the best way to break into an agency.  And it’s very possible that you might pigeonhole yourself into a specific niche or area by your suggestion so that they don’t realize you could be a fit in another area. Or they zero in on your suggestion and say no simply because they don’t need help with that. But if you have been more open, they may have been able to see other ways you could have helped them.

However, that said, here are two cases were you may want to have a more specific request in your LOI:

1. The company has an outdated blog. If the blog is on their website then that means that they think it’s important and want to have a blog. The fact that it’s outdated means that they don’t have time to maintain it. By offering to help with blogging in this case, you show initiative and odds are higher that this is something that they really want to do.
2. You know the company uses freelancers for a specific project. If you know that the company uses freelancers for their blog or to write articles for a monthly print publication, then absolutely mention that specific project in your LOI. Make sure that you are sending the LOI to the person who actually hires freelances if at all possible.

I prefer simply to ask if they have any freelance content marketing needs. I think that this is more likely to encourage the company to think about all the ways they could use you and increases your odds of landing work. They may remember that they have a whitepaper that they have been wanting to write or never have the time. Or that the person who has been writing their blog just put in her two-week notice yesterday. And hopefully, this will lead to you getting a great new gig.

Do you have other tips on starting up a longer term conversation in your LOI?